


Dreaming in Yellow Sunshine

by Mornelithe_falconsbane



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine
Genre: Gen, Many gardens, Meeting yourself, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:20:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22458628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mornelithe_falconsbane/pseuds/Mornelithe_falconsbane
Summary: Shikako is beside herself in the Land of Hot Water.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 309
Collections: Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection, Writing Rainbow Yellow





	Dreaming in Yellow Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_rck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/gifts).



The music fades, her eyes open, Aoba is there, and so is herself. The nearly silent streets of the village of Hot Water stretch out around them, the air quiet and almost dead.

 _Oh_ , she thinks, her eyes wide as she takes this in. _I guess it doesn’t create a paradox._

It’s nice to see Aoba alive. 

More Gelels than she remembers lie under her skin, banked embers of borrowed power. Herself across the room echos in symphony, and that's interesting--really interesting. 

" _I’m you from the future,_ " she says in English, because it's the fastest way she can think of to prove it to herself.

 _“No way,_ " herself replies, her eyes bright and curious. She's not afraid, and she wonders at that--it seems like she should be. _“How far?”_

Aoba looks between them, squinting behind his sunglasses. "Do you know her?" he asks.

They are not safe here. Jashin is like a shadow over the sun, and there's no more than a day before the monks will act--they hadn't been in Hot Water for long when it'd happened, had they? "I'm her cousin," she lies. "Ayame."

"Ah..." Aoba, not being an idiot, doesn't buy it. "Shikako?"

"I would have thought--"

The sun is shadowed with the power of a god, and the ground beneath her is a seal to summon it. Ayame is good at breaking seals--she's had a lot of practice. She drags her foot across the path, her Chakra a knife beneath her. The seal cracks, and in that instant, it is no different from Gelel--Shikako lets it flood the dead air and hears the god scream on the other side of the sky.

Shikako stares at her. It's fair--there was nothing subtle about that.

The monks bells cease ringing. 

Aoba clears his throat. "Did you want to get dinner with Ayame, Shikako?"

Ayame sighs, and feels the monks start scattering. "I have to kill the monks first," she answers, remembering a second too late that the question isn't for her. They both look wide-eyed, like they can't decide if they have to break their cover for this. "They're evil monks," Ayame explains. "Trust me, I've been here before."

"Oh--oh _shit_ ," Aoba says, and Ayame can't tell if it's because he figured it out or if he can see the monks coming down the street towards her. “What--I swear, if you say classified, I’m going to die right here and now out of sheer frustration.”

“You aren’t going to die,” Ayame says too sharply and he _looks_ at her and he realizes--Ayame can’t keep her thoughts off her face, and Aoba definitely knows. She’s saved when the monks start screaming for their blood, and both Aoba and Shikako decide she’s enough of an ally for this. 

Shikako turns to face the monks and her stance is so casual--she looks just like Shikamaru, Ayame realizes, and her throat tries to close up because he’s probably alive in this world. He probably _knows her_ in this world. Fuck, that's going to be so awkward.

"After this we should talk, I guess" Shikako says to herself.

“After this we should blame it on Cloud and flee the country, but after _that_ , yes, let’s discuss your--cousin.” Aoba ducks a battle axe, and guts the monk swinging it. 

Aoba is an efficient fighter. Kakashi-sensei had been better in almost every world, and Tobirama-sensei even better for the few weeks she’d known him, but Aoba is competent enough.

Ayame is better. (Weird, it’s weird--he’d been better than her, right? She remembers that--but this is her Aoba, or so close that her memory can no longer find a difference).

She rips through the monks, sealing the heads and bodies as she separates them, and it’s almost confusing--the seal must have taken so much out of her the first time she was here, because Ayame remembers vividly how impossible this had felt. They scream something about her being the vessel of Jashin and the rotting nest of humanity's last hope, but this is the fourth time she's done this--Ayame would be more worried if they'd said something new. 

“How long?” Shikako asks, when the street is blood-streaked but empty. 

She’s spent a really long time not thinking about time. Ayame's thoughts unfurl, and they casually do the math while she's too distracted not to--it's been over a year. Over two years, really. Explains why she hardly recognizes the girl across from her.

“A while,” Ayame says and Aoba's frustrated groan feels like it chipping away at her heart.

Her smile isn't steady.

This doesn't feel like home.


End file.
